


You'll Never Know

by Dannycangetitright



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Soul-Searching, Soulmate Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7262008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dannycangetitright/pseuds/Dannycangetitright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The soul-marks are the first sign<br/>The second sightings soon come after that<br/>Then the third one should already be there by now</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Never Know

Frank Castle feels the itch in his skin, the pinprick pain of the words etching itself to his flesh. He can’t see it, but he knows it’s on the front of his right thigh, random and haphazardly placed as most marks are.

He looks at the words in the mirror to read it better. It’s the mark he’ll have for the rest of his life. It’s the name of his soulmate.

His brows furrow when he looks at the mirrors image. He’s halfway convinced himself it’s the trick of the mirror, but it can’t possibly be.

It’s not a name like he had thought, but a name in a different sense, a descriptor, a trait, a title. It’s still pretty early for him to get it, maybe it isn’t fully developed. Unlikely though. All marks are permanent the moment they form. No mistakes. Sixteen isn’t really that great of an age to get it though. Frank doesn’t feel all too proud that he’s one of the very early bloomers, it's confusing and too much pressure for him, makes him way too self-conscious about this person he was meant for. He knows that it doesn’t happen too often, but some pairs will get marks at an early age, before they’re the ripe age of 18. It’s the first symbol of a connection between two soul bounded people that stays with them all throughout their lives.

Both of them get it when it happens. So when Frank gets his, somewhere in the world, his soulmate has his name on their skin as well.

The word Daredevil is Frank Castle’s first sign.

It’s something he obsesses for a while. And he hates that his whole life is now focused on an imaginary person, but he can’t help it. He used to be one of those people that made fun of soulmarks because he was one of those silly teenagers who made fun of everything.

But now he has one. It's real. And it's so easy now to obsess like some goddamn love stricken boy. It’s all that’s occupied his mind now that he’s constantly asking from time to time what a name like that could mean, what it could ever entail.

His sudden interest on it causes his family to pick up on it very quickly.

He tells them when they ask directly, letting his shorts ride up as he reveals the name. His parents find it strange, not at all understanding why it’s called that and not a real name.

They whispered in strange bemusement at the name: _Daredevil_

He doesn’t fuss so much about it as they do. Naturally, he also develops a quick aptitude to find anything interesting, especially having a name that’s different, it’s like he’s some part of secret club that only he’s part of. It's easy to make yourself feel special with a name like that on his skin. 

It’s not a George, a Caitlyn, a Wanda or any other of names that people have had in his high school or in his neighborhood. It’s different. He likes that. Nothing to feel self-conscious about a name that's different and meaningful. A name like Daredevil has to have a story behind it. Frank can't wait to know what that story entails.  

But he plays it out coolly with the other kids, of them finding it strange like his parents, but thinking it’s just cool nonetheless like him.

It becomes kind of annoying as time goes on though, of him trying to explain to everyone that it’s his soulmates name and not some tattoo. It shouldn’t bother him so much, but it feels like a personal attack every time someone comments on his cool tattoo. He feels like he’ll get over it soon enough, to just go with it and understand that he can’t explain the name Daredevil to everyone who asks. It’s too unique of a problem to worry over for long.

But it starts to feel more like this name holds nothing to guarantee his soulmates is his. How can he find a Daredevil? How can he find someone who’s just a title? What ownership does he have over this person? It worries him, but it’s just a fraying thought, nothing that holds long into his young mind to create doubt or malice.

He will leave it to fate. He’s young. He still believes in that thing called fate, of other things, too, like hope and dreams.

He will hope.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Matthew Murdock traces the words for the first time when he’s 12, in the arboretum outside on a warm day at the orphanage. The writing on his skin feels jagged and quick-drawn, albeit more readable than scribble. It’s nice. It’s straightforward for handwriting, nothing like his own, not like the forced calligraphy the nuns at the church had taught him.

He’s also very thankful that the mark leaves an imprint he can read from touch. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to read it.

But once he fully feels it, feels that it’s only one word, it perplexes him as much as it scares him.

 _Punisher_?

What does that mean? It’s not a normal name, nothing like the older kids at the orphanage have. He knows about the names, knows how they’re special and how all the nuns teach them that when the time comes, the name of their dearest one will show on their skin.

They tell them that it is a gift from god.

So that is why he still shows Sister Genevieve the name after a week of uselessly praying for it to go away, pulling down his polo collar in a muted excitement kind of way. Matt wants to show the only nun who was willing to deal with Matt’s disability and special concerns without ever addressing them as a hindrances. She was the only nun to show more than just compassion for his blindness at the age of 9 and throughout his first years. He came to the orphanage with sprawling hands on the wall to find where to go. Just as quickly as he got lost, Sister Genevieve came by his side, lending her hand, and guiding him to his room with just a simple: ‘would you like help?’

“ _Sinner_.”

“Pardon-”Matt says casually, clearly thinking he misheard.

The slap is not something he was expecting, not what he thought would happen at all. He was looking for help, to understand. For that same guidance he was taught by her. Not whatever this was. There are tears in his eyes he can’t help but make, can feel how hot they are on his skin, how they’re flowing down the sides of his cheeks as she stands up to take him harshly by the arms.

She tugs at him, so viciously and shakily. “You’ve been branded a sinners mark, boy. You’re marked for the _devil_.”

The words sting like venom to Matt’s mind, the horrible sensation of dread fills him at her words, at her proclaim, dragging him to somewhere he isn’t particularly familiar with. He’s trying to stop her pushing with the grounding of his heels, but she tugs hard enough for him to keel over. He notices quickly that the scents don’t smell nice at all, not like the garden he was in with her. It’s cold and dark where they go, no longer the smell of the candles and primrose the orphanage usually smells like. It’s dusty and cavernous, like they’re in a basement.

‘It’s just a name. Ms. Genevieve,” he says so helplessly, more than he did when he lost his dad. He feels her hands crushing his wrist. He screams in pain as she backhands him again.

Matt doesn’t speak anymore, in total fear of being hit again.

He feels her pushing him, hard enough that he falls over a strip of wood under his feet. His hands search around the floor, feeling the dusty and rank smell of dead mice around him.

“Matthew Michael Murdock, the lord has written his sin on you, and you will be punished as he commands.”

He quickly huddles to the corner, fear enveloping his mind as his tears continue pouring. Her words sting, but the tone is what shakes him. She sounds more scared than angry. It’s an almost feral scared, one that frightens him even more. Her voice isn’t comforting or patient anymore.

He doesn’t pick up on what she says afterwards, the fear too much for him. But he can assume she means hostility since he does hear the words ‘demon child’ once or twice. It sends a shiver down Matt’s spine at being called that. His hands shake uncontrollably as the beginnings of a sob force him to breathe. It feels like he’s lost all over again, like he’s more than just scaling walls to find where he is. It’s like the world got darker for Matt, a shade added to his already perpetual darkness.

She locks the door with a curt slam, it makes his ears hurt with the forced slam. Her muddled voice is still harsh when she says that he’ll only be taken out when he’s repented.

But how can he? How can he repent at a word he doesn’t understand? That even he doesn’t get why it was written on his skin in the first place.

 It’s his soulmates name, he knows that with unfounded certainty. But her words had stung, had left an imprint that seemed to shatter his heart and pulse to pieces.

 _I’m not a demon_ , the young boy tells himself as he continues to cry and sob into his arms, rubbing away at the words on his collarbone, making the skin sensitive and raw, but still feeling the hopeless outline of the words hopelessly.

“I’m not a demon,” he repeats alone to himself.

 

 

-

 

 

It happens all too quick that Frank doesn’t even understand why his vision fades, why the light stops seeping through his bedroom window. It’s terrifying that he screams in sheer panic. He knows his eyes are open, but he can’t see anything.

But the noise. The cacophony of noise is ear shattering. It’s the loudest thing he’s ever heard, and he can’t even pinpoint it. All random and all over the place that his head is rattling at him to find quiet.

The sounds range from the tiniest mews of animals, to the sounds of a cars honking, to the sound of machinery grinding to – it’s endless, the sounds, the decibels rising in unsurmountable power, and then another wave of new sounds mesh together with the old ones, becoming indescribably loud.

It feels like his ears split open, the sound so unbearable. And then the smells hits him, like an afterthought, but all the same in overloading his mind. It’s the same indescribably feeling. It’s all too big is what he smells, like he can taste every aspect of what he’s smelling, so much that he can’t even begin to figure even one of them out.

All of his senses tingle with so much sensory overload. Except for his sight, it’s blank. The only solace he has from the overshare.

Then it all clears up, but not like it’s gone, but like its focusing, pinpointing on particular sounds that are important.

 _Matthew Michael Murdock, the lord has written his sin on you and you will be punished as he commands._ The voice is cruel, lacking no sympathy, only hatred. Frank feels her hands on what he assume are someone else’s hand. It’s his soul bound partners hands that are being handled. The woman is all rough and pushing. Frank is able to focus on the sensations, it all registers in, like a slowly developing picture, impossible to ignore: like his cheeks feeling raw, like they’ve been slapped and hit, or the horrible pain in the chest, the heartbreaking feel of it all.

 _It’s just a name. Ms. Genevieve!_ The boy’s voice breaks his heart, tears him wide open with hurt. He feels the slap this time, feels the painful bloom cross his face.

_You will stay in this corridor for the night, like the demon you are, and pray the lord that your father never sees you for the sinner you are._

The silence becomes deafening in the room once Frank hears a door slam shut.

The crying is the only thing that fills the room, the feeling of tears falling down his face, a familiar sensation to not remember.

It wrecks Frank with fear and sorrow that he can’t think or act straight.

_Matt._

It’s a foreign name to him, but he feels comfortable to say it now.

Then like a light flicker, his vision comes back, but his ears still ringing from the input.

And all that’s left of the sighting. No evidence to make it real except that he’s repeating the name Matthew over and over, trying to reach something he can’t begin to imagine. To a person who he doesn’t know why he feels a fierce need to protect, to love and nurture.

His parents scramble into his room, worried and concerned with the noise their only son was making. He stands up quickly from his bed, the motion making him sick and then he feels blood drip down his nose. Her mother rushes to his side on the bed, moving forward to wipe his nose, and then feel his head for a cold.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Matthew,” he says the name with a weep, like it’s an answer. “Matthew is alone, he’s got no one, ma. He’s alone and trapped.” He weeps into her arms now, painful and desperate. His mother shushed at him softly, comforting him because she knew all to well what he was going through. His father is stoic, but supportive as he listens to his son sob into his wife’s arms. He puts his hands on his shoulder, resting them awkwardly on it, but feeling like he needs to communicate through touch.

No one had told little Frank Castle that the second sightings were terrible. That they weren’t visions of their true loves most dearest moments. It wasn’t something he had ever expected, something this awful and intense.

His father had sat him down for a talk once he had calmed down, his mother standing by his side. He confessed everything to them, letting the words roll out of his tongue in sadness.

His father squares his shoulders. Frank was expecting a lecture of some sorts, but instead he tells him that sometimes the second sightings will tell him of things that are terrible, of things that happen to your beloved that aren’t that great.

“But it makes your connection stronger, Francis, makes it powerful and impossible to break by suffering your trauma together.”

Her mother rubs his shoulders again, “It’s a truly powerful thing once you meet this man, Francis, he will ease all of your pain the moment you meet him and vice-versa. I felt the same with your father. Nothing has freed me more than meeting the man I love.”

His father nods in gentle kindness as he holds on to Franks shaking hands, enveloping them to comfort him. “You’ll find him soon, Francis, you’ll save him, I know it,” his father whispers.

He promises he will.

 

 

-

 

 

 

He keeps the mark to himself from now on, doesn’t show anyone or tell anyone. He’s young enough that people wouldn’t question. And so it stays hidden like a terrible scar on his skin. Keeps it to himself like a personal reminder. 

And maybe it is. Maybe it’s not.

He can’t undo habit and fear caused by the mark. It grows on you, like rust. It’s hard to get rid of once it shows.

But he still finds himself fretfully tracing the outline from time to time, when he’s bored and alone and in need of something to think, to ponder and fill the silence of his empty room. When nothing is left to do in the boring minutes until dinner, when he’s read all the brail books available and the few printed books he’s smuggled into his room, avoiding the questions from the librarian: ‘ _if you’re blind, why must you keep these books?’_

It’s still there, like he had silently hoped it would disappear from those time to time touches by now.

 _Why?_ He asks pointlessly to himself, while circling the words _Punisher_ on his skin. _Why are you my mark?_

But it’s decided for him a few years after the terrible event with Sister Genevieve, like a small revelation to ease his guilt ridden mind, when he’s been given time to understand the word, like really understand it’s implication from a more understanding standpoint, ones that don’t jump to terrible conclusions based on fear and prejudice.

“A punisher can be both good and bad, Matthew,” Father Lantom had told him one day at morning confessional, sitting alongside with him from the other end of the divider.

He hadn’t expected that response.

He wasn’t even going to mention the name.

He just wanted understanding about soulmates.

“How do you know?” he asked, but he already knew, he just wanted to fill the air of the prompting silence.

“Sister Genevieve has confided about your predicament to me recently.” 

Matt doesn’t try to hide the sting he feels again from the word ‘predicament’. It reminds him of knee jerking guilt and insufferable discomfort. Another reminder to keep his mark hidden.

“I thought gossip was a sin,” he chuckled at his words, morosely of course, failing to keep his tone light. Father Lantom probably doesn’t know the full extent of her abuse, but he’s not willing to out the words like that. It was a long time ago. There’s still shame in admitting it though.

“She’s not the most understanding of all the nuns. I do not take her side on it being a… predicament - as she put it - those are her words, not mine.”

“What is your side on it then?”

“It’s dependent on who you ask, but to give perspective, it is a neutral name through and through. Neither good nor bad in its implication on your skin. A punisher is someone who doles out justice, but can also be a terrible executioner.”

“So why is it my mark?”

“Maybe you’re soulmate is a Punisher in the most base and technical sense, like every aspect of their being points toward them being a Punisher, that they’re someone who honours that title with their life that it’s as much as their name as the one their born with.”

Matt places his fingers on the words, feeling them again for what seems like forever. He’d hidden them from the world for so long it feels strange to not feel guilt over the words.

But he rolls over what Father Lantom said, thinks about it really, and finds the comfort now from his mark, like it’s giving off a subtle warmth in the recesses of his mind. It brings a smile to Matt’s face finally to think about the person who holds this name, this title to his skin that he honours. It’s nicer to think that he holds this mantle of a title.

“Maybe that’s all you need to think about right now about them. It might come as a surprise to for you to know that many soulmates can have their nicknames on their skin, something that is both very personal and tied to them as I said.”

“What’s your soulmates name?”

“Hearth,” he answers simply.

 _Hearth_? It’s like his name. It’s more of a descriptor than a name. “And you never found them? That’d be quite an easy nickname to find.”

Father Lantom takes a while to respond, a chuckle just a whisper to his sensitive ears. “Her real name was Margaret Joy. Her find name was Hearth. She was my joyful woman.”

“Where is she now?” Matt visibly grimaces at his words. He didn’t meant to make such a faux pas.

Father Lantom sighs in resignation, like his next words will be heavy with pain and he’s trying to prepare for them, “She is gone. My bastion of love and light. My soulmate.”

“You don’t have to continue,” Matt says, figuring the silence to be a cue to speak once it settles too long. 

Father Lantom shakes his head. He continues,” I’ll tell you about her, my soulmate, it’s important I do.” His voice falters yet again when he tries to speak, he coughs and then finally with a forced tone, “She was a young girl that would work in charities, walked with the school children every day, took in many stray cats to the dismay of her parents, and loved with so much purity that people never questioned her help.”

Matt can feel Father Lantom’s smile warm the room. “She also was very good at getting everyone together, neighbors, friends and strangers all piled together at a hearth of her home or outside in their big backyard, where she’d sing and dance and bring everyone a little closer than they already were. She was always bringing people together, comforting and enveloping them with her love. Always so happy and joyful that one.” He pauses with his next words, then continues with another heavy sigh at remembering those old memories. “She would have made me a very happy husband had I not taken this path, and she was dying from terminal cancer at the age of 14.”

“I’m-I’m sorry.”

“Do not feel sorry for me,” he says, shaking his head slowly, “She lived every moment of her life with pure happiness and joy, even when she went through cancer treatments and surgeries. She was always smiling, touching people’s hearts because it’s all she could give. So I smile for me and her, too. I will continue until we meet again in heaven, I know it. For now I will do God’s work, and spread the same joy she did.”

Matt stifles a sob, of the tears slipping past his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he says again, but it’s more for himself now, about how pitiful he’s acting.

 “None of that, Matthew,” he says in in slight reprimand. “All I ask is for you to keep going forward, to be happy and thoughtful about your soulmate. You will find them. It will all come together in the end.”

 

 

-

 

 

The next couple of second sightings come in small flurries that aren't so traumatic as last time. This time their like little special vignettes into a world he and Matt are only privy to.

They come as haphazardly as the first mark did. They don’t have an exact time frame to happen. They just do. Mostly - and usually - on important events in their soulmates lives. Birthdays. Graduation. Getting an award. Getting a tough goal in. Virtually anything happen that impacts their soulmates lives would grant a second sighting to occur.

In Frank’s case, it’s mostly when Matt trains.

He also picks up on why it’s so dark, why it’s still pitch-black. Matt was blind. It’s the simple truth that he doesn’t question anymore because hearing Matt’s voice is more than enough to fill him.

He still sounds like a little boy, a small scared thing that needs to find his footing in the ground. And he does. He learns all to well that Matt knows his footing.

By peering into Matt’s sensory world, of the sounds of him hitting a punching bag, the familiar sound of it something ingrained in him from watching big time boxing movies.

He’s boxing for real though, Frank realizes quickly, not a punching bag at all, but fighting with a human whose dulcet tone borders on chiding about his speed and his movements. Frank recognizes the tone of the man, heard him talk a couple of times from previous second sightings. He’d learned long ago that he didn’t like him very much.

But instead, he focuses on Matt’s punches, he can feel the arms flurrying in the air, the technique something practiced and well taught from months of training. Matt’s a pacifist though. Frank can immediately tell, what with how lightly he throws them, not giving his all in them, always keeping his full strength back.

The man’s tone calls for him to punch harder. Matt tries. Fails. He gets thrown over the ground with a swipe to his feet. Frank feels winded and doesn’t appreciate the laugh above him at all.

“Throw a goddamn punch for real, kid.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Embarrassing is what it is.”

Matt rolls his eyes and Frank chuckles at how put upon Matt feels. Frank also learned later on that Matt didn’t do this to necessarily fight off bullies or defend himself, but to give him something normal to do. This man was teaching him to fight not because he needed it, but simply because he treated Matt like he wasn’t a pitied thing. He showed Matt this simply because he could.  He showed him skills and powers he deemed as gifts to Matt. In a way it taught him that being blind wasn’t a hindrance to his daily life. It was a part of his identity that he learned to be proud of.

So training makes him feel connected to the world, to not be sidelined as handicapped only. It’s an escape as much as it is training for something.

Frank feels proud of Matt every time he lands a punch or kick. It's powerful and strong how he fights at a young age. Frank continues to ignore the harsh reprimand of the old guys tone. He’s proud of him regardless. He wishes he could convey it. But he can’t. Second sightings only occur as one sided overshares. It’s a glimpse. And he’ll take what he can.

He wonders when Matt will get his.

Wonders what moments in his life will Matt see. Then it dawns on him, a beautiful flicker in his mind, will Matt see what he sees when he has his vision? Will he be given sight? It’s a strange thought to try and figure out.

Maybe he will. Frank would be content in giving him a respite from this constant darkness. He knows Matt doesn’t need it. But he’s certain Matt misses it from time to time.

It’ll be the first gift he gives to him. A slight reprieve to his forlorn life. A small thank you for giving purpose.

 

 

-

 

 

Matt decides to become a lawyer the same time he gets his first second sighting.

It’s a flash of light that he’s not at all prepared to have. He’d accepted long ago that he was never going to see again. It disorients him a bit, so foreign – yet so familiar – the sensation of vision.

The world takes a moment to focus, to make him grasp what he’s really seeing. Red. Blue. Orange. Brown. Black - all these colours he’d longed to see one more time finally being granted.

Matt savours it all. But he doesn’t focus on the sight for long, he feels his chest heaving with a sob. It rips through his ears with relative normalcy. It’s a shock for him to not hear the loud sound even louder. He doesn’t like this feeling at all. It’s even more disorienting than not being blind. The world also smells so _small_ , so limited and miniscule. It’s awful. It’s not the reprieve he’d been hoping for. It feels like he’s kept away from the secret world he’s so used to being part of.

His attention shifts again from worry about himself, to worry about the sobs coming from within him. It’s his soulmates voice.

“You’re gone, dad,” the boy says with a ragged sob. His voice is nearly baritone, but still shaking off the last few vestiges of boyhood.

Matt feels the pain in the words, but he also feels the anger, too, how restrained it all is, but it’s powerful. It burns him, like gasoline and all things flammable, enveloping him in hell flames as his hands and shoulder shake with unneeded fury, not at all wracked sobs or painful cries of mourning like he thought they were. The boy is just as sad as he is angry at the world, mad at the injustice of murder, of the allowance of violence in this world to continue.

Matt’s vision becomes blurry as the boy wipes away tears, no longer looking at the pews of people crying and sobbing in front of him now.

He’s at a funeral he surmises sadly.

His soulmates father’s funeral.

It’s a lot of information to take in, but he notices that he’s standing up now, moving away from the crowd, and closer to the front of the podium, he looks up to find a rainbow mosaic window of God and his children surrounding him. It’s beautiful as it is solemn to look at. At the bottom center of where the mosaic is, lays a closed casket, resting their as a small beckoning omen. The boy moves towards it and puts his hand on the metal latches, then moves his hand to the top part of the closed casket, (Matt is thankful he doesn’t have to see a dead body today) where he knows it hides his soulmates father..

Even without his oversensitive touch, Matt knows the wood is mahogany. Expensive and beautifully resilient in its dark red colours.

It reminds him of his own father’s funeral. He was buried in a mahogany casket as well. It was the only expensive thing Jack Murdock had spent for in his entire life.

Matt had chosen it, but he bought it with his dad’s insurance money.

That was a cold, terrible day where he didn’t want to do anything once it was over. How do you continue after losing your dad? He didn’t feel anger like this. His temperament was always collected and level. Even as a kid all he did was cry mournfully, and then was stoic for a couple of weeks, swaying from catatonic to mute. But he came back, didn’t let his life go to waste because guilt was always one of his best motivators. He felt guilty about wasting his life that his dad worked so hard for him to achieve.  He didn’t want to disappoint his dad anymore by moping around about feeling guilty for his death. So he decided to move on and do something. 

He truly never felt this kind of anger though, it was desperate and childlike. It was drowning all his senses red. And the sadness was more than enough to drown him. He was being flooded with anger. He isn’t used to it. Matt’s more used to internalizing most of his suffering. Letting it out in small, contained outburst of panic and fear. It’s a lot easier to deal with anger and frustration about losing your father one demented relapse at a time.

But this boy feels frayed wide open. He’s hurt and trembling. No one seems to notice, everyone too sad or too preoccupied at keeping others from going over the top.

This man must have been loved well. By everyone around him.

Everyone is in some form of dismay and disarray. It’s quite a seen that Matt feels a sad tug in his heart.

The young boy moves away though, away from the casket, goes and rushes into a different room and heads towards an exit door. He wants to escape all of this heartache.

 He feels the sun beaming down on him in harsh light, how his eyes squint from the sensitivity, how hot he feels trapped in a suit in this heat.

The boy keeps walking, then running, moves his legs with heavy and determined steps until they become tired and he falls to his knees in a grassy patch a few yards away from the church..

His soulmate doesn’t speak. He just wordlessly lets his heart break apart.

“They’ll pay for what they did.”

It sounds lost and so young now, with how tantrum induced the threat is.

Matt has brief thoughts of mafia related violence, of warnings to stay off their territory, hears a startled phone call where a woman screams; saying: “It’s not true. It’s not true!”

And nothing was done to appease his soulmates father’s death. No follow up reports. Improper police procedure to procure evidence. Unrightfully deemed an accident even though there was foul play with the breaks, causing his dad to speed downhill into another car.

It’s a lot to paint with, this terrible picture.

Still reminds him of his father’s own death. It wasn’t an accident. Murdered on the spot when he wouldn’t rig his last match to be a loss, and because of that, he was left to die in a cold alley way when Matt had finally found him.

It’s all Matt’s fault that he’s dead. He knows on some level it’s not. Hell’s Kitchen is a corrupt enough place that anything could have happened. It just so happened he wished his dad didn’t lose this one _stupid_ fight. Now he’s gone.

But guilt was always his best motivator. So he strays from those dark thoughts, and instead moves on.

The vision fades away though, of the boy crying and yelling out in anger all at the same time. He feels guilty to leave him, but there’s nothing he can do but pray and hope for him to be better. He sends condolences to a father he never knew.

Darkness becomes a reassuring blankness to his sight. The scents and noise of everything envelops his nose and ears, makes him smell (and taste) and hear all that is around him at the moment. It’s nice to feel things his way now.

But Matt’s thankful for the sight. He keeps the colours and hues, the lines and curvatures of objects and people, stuck into his mind for reference.

Matt doesn’t focus on that for long, he’s restless and stands up, sits down at his desk, tapping out a to-do list, because he’s going to pan out a future, to help him figure out how to be lawyer by the time he’s even touched his diploma or applied. It’s quite a simple reason for why he chooses it. Justice.

Simple justice is the only solution his pacifist’s soul can take. Besides, he can’t be a cop. Too many roadblocks down that path that would be tiring to break down. He knows he has the credits and grades to apply to most places, has the academic and work ethic to graduate at an Ivy League, where he can be someone who can make a difference in this unfathomably terrible world. But it won’t happen without hard-work.

So he spends the next upcoming years working his ass off to study and learn, to apply his time at university to the fullest, to make something out of the boy he used to be, and to be the man he’s going to be. Becoming a lawyer is the best option. It’s actually made for him, the life of a soon-to-be lawyer, it’s something that hits him with unsteady amazement when he finally becomes acquainted with the hallways of Columbia University. He felt at home the moment he first entered his first class, of the fondness his professors have of him, of the mock trails that invigorate Matt to no end that he cannot wait for the real thing once he’s out in the field as a full-fledged lawyer.

Even his bizarre new roommate is something Matt has found something he’s thankful for having. Foggy Nelson is a strange man who obsesses over superheroes way too much, overstocks on an endless supply of kettle chips, blast a myriad of Rock Music to dance synth pop music, and acting like Matt’s weird blind tricks to be the neatest thing in the world.

Matt and he have created a strange friendship, something Matt has missed greatly, of having a best friend you could confide with, the most was his own father and some friends at the orphanage. It’s a startling thing to realize for Matt, how he’s never had this kind of camaraderie for long. It’s refreshing as it is wonderful.

A friend to just get drunk with, to confide in secrets with, to talk about exes or any other conceivable thing that friends do. The topic of soulmates is a bit of a touchy subject. Matt isn’t willing to share that kind of thing just yet. It’s personal. And most people understand that.

But Foggy isn’t most people.

So on the day of their final exams, when Foggy and he and a few other friends all get dangerously wasted that same night, when just the two of them the only one’s still standing (alcohol poisoning isn’t a thing to them), he shows Foggy his soulmates marks. Matt’s already know’s what Foggy’s soulmates name is. Foggy had made him feel it. He’s one of those people all too open and happy to share their soulmates name. (Proud and inexorably amazed to find them one day that they need to tell everyone less they know who she is.) It’s on the front of his arm, midway to his elbow, where the words: Karen Page jut of his skin. 

“Punisher?” Foggy asks in a bemused tone. It’s not hateful or spiteful. Foggy would never be that way. But Matt still frets.

“Now you know why I didn’t want to show it to you,” he explains.

“I’ve heard about nicknames being used as marks, but I’ve never actually seen one. Wow, that’s pretty sick for a name though.”

“I don’t think anyone has called my soulmark ‘sick’ before.”

“Matt,” he says the words a bit like he’s found a secret, his voice in awe and starstruck, “You do know a 'Punisher' is kinda like what a lawyer does, you know? They punish bad guys. Maybe your soulmate’s a lawyer, too.”

And it’s kind of a big revelation to Matt. Granted, it's been at the back of his mind, the suggestion of what _Punisher_ could actually mean, but finding someone who thinks the same way has him reassured on his suspicions. Foggy’s made that clear, and Matt feels one hundred percent thankful. 

He’s thankful to his soulmate, too, wherever they may be, for what felt like a push into the right direction.

 

 

-

 

 

He slowly slides into his cot with daunting exhaustion, holds every muscle back to not jump into bed and rest for a few days.

He can’t act unseemly amongst his peers.

He sleeps like a soldier.

So he keeps his bed neat, everything folded perfectly, unlacing his boots with easy practice, sets them to the side end side of the bed. He’s already washed, clean, and sated for tonight. His fresh cut has him feel the nipping of the cold air, even more so now that he’s only in his skivvies to go to sleep. He’s precise to leave his clothes at the hem of the bed, knowing they won’t get knocked away by restless feet since he’s been trained to sleep still.

He lays there for a bit, eyes still open, not yet finding the tug of sleep to be irresistible. 

He’s exhausted of course, but it doesn’t stop the need to think about the name, the need to protect and feel it. Even at the thought of it causes him to unconsciously search for it, to feel the words Daredevil imprinted on his skin.

People still act perplexed that it’s his soulmates name even now. It’s really the main reason he just tells all his bunkmates that it’s a tattoo. It’s easy to think it is one. An easy disguise for something that he doesn’t want to hide at all, but has to in fear of further questioning.

Besides, who’s ever heard of a soulmate being named Daredevil? Much less a guy’s name being Daredevil? They’ll never figure it out, but Frank’s always been paranoid.

He’s certain it’s just a nickname now. Just knows with some innateness he can’t quite explain.

And Frank wonders, wonders what the name can possibly mean. What is a Daredevil to his heart?

Is Matt going to grow up to be some kind of stunt performer or entertainment act? He certainly has the training and expertise to be one. The blind thing could be his gimmick.

He gets a kick out of that more often than not, getting giddy about the thought that he’d belong to someone who desired danger as much as he did. Well desire is a strong word. More like a knack for finding it.

The other soldiers he calls his friends though have taken a liking to the name on his skin, too. Especially when he does morning runs, or fires off a gun with true purpose, or when he’s the only one driving IED’d heavy roads to get them to safety. It’s even more prominent when their out on missions and he’s the one single handedly taking out enemy infidels; completely outnumbered, and coming out with the worst bruises and injuries, but still alive and breathing.

He’s a Daredevil.

They nickname him by it without even knowing they’re saying his soulmates words to him.

Every time he’s gets called by that name, it makes himself push harder, staves off all the doubt or fear he keeps locked in his boundless heart, to keep moving through training, diligently biting through those drills and exercises with the excessive need to survive and be strong for him. It’s ridiculous to think about this person, this figment of his imagination that’s only real on his skin still, so perilously and earnestly. All of what he does is to reinforce the oath he keeps to this man. To Matthew. He can’t die on the fields.

He starts looping the beautiful curves of the script, still smiling regardless of how he’ll probably have only have a good 2 hours of sleep before there’s a surprise drill telling them all to get prepared.

But like he always does, he’ll go through the motions with one clear cut thought: _Live for him_.  

And he will, he has to, because he has one in the first place, like it was another duty when he accepted he was a soldier.

His father told him he’d find him, he’d protect him. Thinking about him though sends a wave of pain, cold and dark, but Frank lets himself warm up with the reassuring voice of his father’s words.

_“You’ll find him, Franky.”_

He has to be there for Matthew in the end. He promised his father he would. It’s the only promise he has left to keep to him. Only one he can.

_I’ll be there for you, Matt._

He loves that name even before he has yet to say it out loud to him.

It’s funny to think about his soulmate, but not in the same derisive and sarcastic sense he used to think when he was young and restless. It’s funny to him in a more enjoyable stance, loving and open. He’s thankful for Matt, thankful for his purpose in his life, even if he has yet to fulfill it.

Just the fact that it’ll come is enough.

 

 

-

 

 

The staccato of bullets jerks Matt awake in a cold sweat, his ears and heart pulsing with blood. It pales in comparison to any panic attack he’s had in his entire life. He at least felt relief once he realized he was safe and sound.

It’s close to the panic he felt when he found his dad on the cold floor.

Daunting and affecting him deeply into his bones.

His heart is pounding and the panic is rising higher and higher until it’s all that he hears.

But then soon the gift of sight explodes in his eyes, relinquishing the panic he felt, his actually working eyes as are literally looking around now, and he’s savouring and memorizing the colours and details with such melancholic clarity because he’s still misses the beauty of colour from now and then. It’s a wonderful moment until panicked yells and the sound of a grenade explode near him. It doesn’t hurt to hear them, not like he normally would. It’s easier to handle. It’s almost quiet compared to what he would hear.

He strains to hear commands, of the yells of injured, and then the rapped gunfire. Warzone he smells, and sees, and hears, and tastes, and feels all around him. It’s impossible to not know where he is.

He hears the gruff voice of a young man trying to be more than just a young man, of a man trying to survive and do his duty at the same time, but scared shitless still because he’s human.

It’s with great realization that Matt figure’s out it is _his soulmates_ voice. It’s so much older and different now. It’s gruff and manly, no hint of boyhood anymore.

He wants to savour the sound of him as he did with colours and lights of the church before. Wants to savour his deep set voice just as much, too. He finds he likes it. So baritone and deep with a subtle accent in how he works his vowels with his R’s. He’s a native New Yorker. He wants to listen to it forever.

But he can’t because there’s more crashes, more yelling, the strong hold of a gun in his arms as he points and shoots. Points and shoots. Points and shoots. The sounds of the dead are small and incomparable to the endless drum beat of the war.

It even blocks out his voice, all he can really hear is the drumbeat of war, no longer privy to the sound of his soulmates own breathing.

Matt is terrified, but he stays resolute to feel all of this second sighting, to accept the gift for what it is. A window of understanding.

The second sightings are like visions, but they also allow the senses to take over, letting you feel what your soulmate feels and sees in a much more diluted fashion.

You can’t read their thoughts fully, can’t tap into long term memories, only the ones they’re thinking proactively at the moment.

There’s a burn, a match, or spark that settles in his mind. It doesn’t hurt as much as it draws his thoughts towards it.

 _Survive._ It’s not what said, but what is translated into his mind.  

Matt focuses harder, listening to the precise words and not the inherent meaning. It’s a constant repetition… of a name.

_Matthew Michael Murdock._

His head recoils back in surprise. It’s his name that’s being repeated in his soulmates mind.

He says it like a mantra, a soft prayer where only the words: survive, for, and his full name fit in.

He knows Matts name with such confidence that it makes him ache to know the other man’s name with the same beautiful pronunciation. He wants so badly for this vision to end, of it to show something else besides this horrible warzone, and terror in his blood.

But what choice did he have in the first place? A second sighting is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a double edged sword because sometimes what you get isn’t what you thought it would be. It’s not as romanticized as it should be. It’s-

He feels bullets enter his abdomen, one, two, three, four, five, too many to count after that point - too many to want to count in fear of what they mean. The man keels over, but his hands are pushing himself up, stays strong, fights the pain with clenched teeth, finding a will he can’t quite understand where it’s coming from. Matt’s hands are shaking suddenly, like the impact physical affected him as well. Matt can’t breathe anymore.

Matt mutely tries to tell the man to stop moving, to stop hurting, but he can’t bare himself to say it in fear they might come true. He’ll stop. Stop moving. Stop feeling. Stop breathing.

There’s a man in my vision to the left, from where Matt assumes they are crouching, where he is hiding, pressing down with dangerous pressure on the bullets wounds as each one bleeds out, dripping blood on foreign soil.

Matt feels all the pain, all the suffering. It’s awful, going through this with no way to know how long it’ll last for, with no idea who this man is to have some semblance of knowledgeable comfort. Matt doesn’t know which is worse. Never knowing his soulmate, or knowing him in this way.

The man wearing camouflage walks out of his periphery view, his boots the first thing he notices and the fatigues of foreign enemies, face hidden ominously from the canopies shade they must have setup as they tried to make camp when they got ambushed.

Matt screams at him to move his body, finding his voice to rough and pained, yells at him to get the hell out and do something. Tell him to live like he _promised_.

But the foreign man takes out his revolver as he looks at Matt, aims the gun towards his head, no, his soulmates head. He’s going to -

The man shoots without any warning or words. It’s like a sucker punch worse than anything Matt’s felt all throughout his life.

The vision ends with dramatic pause. Blankness envelops the colours, the fading details become blurs, and soon there’s nothing but familiar blackness.

Matt snaps up from his bed once it fully has ended, and walks to the bathroom in a panic rush. He pukes out the remains of dinner, his hands shaking and tears uselessly falling down his face as cold realization seeps into his body.

All of his senses disappeared all at once, like his body just…died for a moment before he was sucked back into the reality of his own world. Matt gulps out in a sob, and it feels like he’s swallowing a hard truth.

Like his vision, _he’s gone._

 

 

-

 

 

_Matthew._

The word is like a whisper is his mind.

The world goes dark again, his mind aimlessly wandering in pitch black darkness.

It’s the sound of words that give him clarity, give him something to hold onto in the darkness of the world. It’s like a giant flashlight that lets him peek into the world, of the sounds that seem so muddled and loud at the same time. His mind racks with pain again, at the auditory overload, but he relishes in the first sensations of feelings for what seem like forever. It’s like he’s been asleep for a long time now and is groggily waking up from their reverie.

_“I saw him die, Foggy.”_

There is silence from behind him. Frank hadn’t realized someone had been shouting at him, at his soulmate. It’s another second sighting of his soulmates life. His second one.

 _Who died_? Frank thinks about it slowly. Like his mind is trying to grasp at a useful meaning to those words.

He hadn’t realized he’d been thinking so hard that he missed part of their conversation. It was hard to focus. Everything really was muddled and slowed down. His ears perk up on the words now again though, focusing on them with great sharpness because they seem to be the only ones loud enough to warrant attention.

“- not going to give you the same reaction. Your soul mate, he’s gone now.”

There’s blooming pain in his chest. Saying it hurt is nowhere near to describe the sensation.

It feels like Frank’s insides were shredding apart, like all of it is mangled and frayed, and soon he’s left with the heavy feeling of pain and numbness. It’s so cold, how it washes down Frank’s body. Matt’s tears finally put the nail on the coffin to what the words mean.

_He died._

It doesn’t feel real this time.

Did he die? Is Matt crying for him? Did Matt see him die?

There’s nothing in this world, of this existence except for blankness and coldness. If Frank is dead, why does he still feel, and hear? Why is he given this pitiful information about something he can’t control? He so badly wants to be able to project a thought to say that he’s here, in some way he’s still alive.

To comfort him because he promised to live for him.

But he can’t. All he can do is take in the feelings, the painful broken vow he made to this man. To keep his oath.

Then soon enough he can feel his legs moving, phantom swaying away like their stuck in the wind. Idle thoughts to jump fill his mind now.

Frank nearly double takes at the thought. No way in hell is he on top of a building, at the edge of the roof. But Frank can feel it, can feel the chilling cold air from the high-top breeze, of the hard cement under his thighs and hands. Frank can feel the emptiness of earth near his legs, gets dizzy from the lack of anything to ground himself on.

 _Don’t you dare fucking do it,_ Frank feels like he’s yelling at the void _._ Feels like his throat is going hoarse, like he’s screaming with his mouth closed, trying to achieve a reaction to get him to stop. Then the light erupts in his vision and there’s a strange sense of falling that comes with it.

“Oh my goodness, Frank!” an unfamiliar voice says.

He suddenly feels the ground below him, the shocking relief of it hit him. He must have fallen off a bed or something, but it felt like something else. He feels the pain, but this time it reminds him he’s alive instead of being cold and numb. It’s refreshing as much as it makes him feel terribly sore. The ceiling above him isn’t a makeshift canopy. It’s a plaster board ceiling with a fan whirling around. He’s laying down on the ground and his head starts to pulse again in pain.

“Where the hell am I,” Frank says in a heavy heave as he pulls himself up with much more strain than required. His muscles scream at him to stop, but he continues, and he gently moves around and lays down on the cold tiled flooring.

“Frank Castle, you’re at the base hospital.”

“Hospital? I still have a mission.” He hadn’t realized how hoarse his voice sounded. So unused like how his muscles feel, how stiff and rigid everything is.

“You’ve been in a coma for 13 months now. Right now we’ve been keeping you stable, and you’ve mostly recovered from life threatening injuries and a bullet to the head. You were considered dead for 30 seconds before we saved you.”

The words shock him into stillness. He looks up at the tanned nurse, how concerned she seems at his shaking hands and legs.

Matt had to have seen it. Saw him lying down in the ground with a gun pointed at his head. It all paints a horrible picture he can’t quite stomach at how Matt must have felt to see all that so suddenly. 

_He thinks I’m dead._

_He’s gone now._

Frank doesn’t even try to hold back tears. He couldn’t protect him. He failed him. He wasn’t strong enough. The nurse calls for help. But Frank can’t be helped. He’s falling all over again.

 

 

-

 

 

He doesn't know the name of the man that left him. Doesn't have that comforting fact, nothing to call him by except for a few sparse memories, and the name he left on his skin, the strange word he had placed on my left collarbone. 

There was no way to fake that numbing sensation except for death. 

The nameless man died in the war. 

Senseless murder between countries that killed the nameless man that he was supposed to call home. 

Home, nothing like that existed long for Matthew. He was an orphan from a young age. Left alone too young by a father trying his hardest to raise him in this violent, corrupt world.

It always comes back to some kind of violence. Violence made him lose the two men that mattered to him the most.

But he takes back that certain sentiment for the war man, takes it back because he doesn’t have the right to say that for him. Matt may have loved him, ( love still a strong word that stings some dejected part of him) but the man was someone he never even really knew, never understood or got to know, all he ever got was the long expired memory of a gruff voice and sad memories.  

And that’s not enough for love.

It’ll never be enough because he’s gone.

He's found himself on the roof of his dorms building, the only place he can find solace from people’s questionings, the teasing and baselessness of it all. 

Everyone is going about their lives in boring tedium as they gaggle around finding their soul mates. College is brimming with couples, an experience all too reinforced as second sightings begin in this stage of their lives.

Foggy’s started this year, his second sightings. Second sightings come and go, but when the connection gets strong, when they start learning more and more about each other, it blasts open like a cracked dam. They’re intermittent, the second sightings, they come in quick flashes in that time frame, becoming shorter and shorter until you know they disappear.

Matt hasn’t had one in a while. His repertoire is pretty scarce. But he’s optimistic that there will be more. He lies to himself that there will be more. It’s not final until the year ends.

But Foggy is happy to share his knowledge about his own soulmate. Matt tries not to feel jealous or feel miserable about his friends happiness, doesn’t try to ignore how excited and content he is for finding a soulmate. He doesn’t feel resentment for him. He’s his best friend. So he listens with a forced smile for a couple weeks that span into months and then it disappears.

Matt had learned that her name is Karen, and that apparently she’s working on becoming a big time journalist. She’s also a pretty blonde that loves to figure skate. Karen also has a cat named Kittens.

He forgets the rest of Foggy’s second sighting finding, not finding them important because the sad realization for Matt sets in, about how silent his soulmates end of the link has been, how each month passes by so quickly, and the truth he didn’t want to believe finally sets in.

He hasn’t had a second sighting in over a year now. He hasn’t learned a single thing about this man.

So it’s sullen desperation that's brought him here. No one can pester him about the weird name, about why he doesn’t talk about his soulmate, why he hasn’t slept or eaten right all throughout this semester. His second sightings have started, but nothing new has come up.

He remembers the first one, and then shudders at the numbness he felt. 

It was like every nerve of his being ceased responding, every synapse stopping mid response as his spinal cord ended all function, all the way to the center of brain, silencing every organ from action. 

It was horrifying. 

Matt died right there with his soulmate. Their future, their life. His soulmate died, and he felt it, was given the full spectrum of sensation just to feel it all.

He nearly failed his exams because of it.

He almost didn't care.

Except Foggy bothered him about his lackadaisical attitude, fought with him like crazy to get his shit together, and he was thankful to have a friend like him to take care of him when his life was shattered, or else he'd have thrown away his chance at finally being a lawyer. But he also needed space, something his friend was still learning to fully understand still.

“What happened?” Foggy asks when he busts open the roof door. Matt had expected him to figure out where he was in a few hours.

Matt had taken to sitting down on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling to make it feel like he’s flying. It’s something Foggy had long forgone to feel concern or panic for. He knew Matt just needed something to do, something that was dangerous but freeing at the same time.  

“I know you’ve had some terrible stuff happen to you, and sometimes shitty things will happen again, no one’s safe from that heartache, but you bullshit through until you’re better. But this? This is worse than when you dated that Elecktra girl.”

“It’s different,” he quietly responded.

“I can tell. There’s something more to this than you’re letting on. It’s personal, this problem, what with how quiet and emotionless you’ve been.”

“Leave it alone, Foggy.”

“I can’t be a good friend and just leave you like this, Matt, it’s not okay.” Foggy rests his hand on his shoulder. It’s a heavy weight Matt doesn’t take in for a while until he starts comfortingly rubbing it. “What happened?”

Matt admitted the truth to him, sent it out in the brisk air, saying the words he never wanted to speak out loud less he remember them in vivid detail again.

Foggy stopped talking, his hand going slack, and his stifled cry is filled with so much sadness and pity. It’s exactly what he didn’t want from anyone, much less his own best friend giving him the same tedious reaction.

“Matt…” his voice is rough, like he’s ready to sob.

“I don’t need to hear it from you,” is his quick response.

“I’m not going to give you the same reaction,” he lies. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Matt… but you gotta keep moving. I’m sure your soulmate would have wanted that.” He sounds so hopeful. Matt can’t really think like that at the moment. He’s too numb still.

“I know," Matt says with grit of his teeth. "Can’t I just mourn?” It comes out like a groan, and Matt flinches at how wrecked his voice sounds. He closes his mouth, and then says, “I lost him, and I never even met him, Foggy. I just..I just need space."  

Matt hears Foggy sigh beside me in resignation, his hand on his shoulder still. “Okay,” he says finally.

Soon Matt hears the footfalls becoming less prominent. Matt faces the fading warmth of the sun, lets it hit him until it gets to that point where he feels nothing on his face, no warmth. Just darkness because dusk is descending. It’ll be cold soon after, cold enough that he should leave or else he’ll be sick.

But he ends up staying there for hours. Hears everyone milling around campus grounds until they become rare patters. There is no silence for him, but this is as close as he can achieve it. It’s calming as it is daunting.

“I hope wherever you are, wherever your soul resides, that you’re safe...and happy.” That doesn’t feel right.

The wind picks up and he’s suddenly dizzy from standing here for so long. He’s nearly edging off the roof. It’d be easy to end the pain, the shallowness his heart feels, to jump. But they are just thoughts. Nothing about them are real. He’s not going to do that.

But he will remember the memories of a boy who cried, of a man who fought, of a love that never was.

A smile places on his face, something he hasn’t done for a while now. It seems right to smile, but so out of place with how he feels. It’s not forced, the smile. It’s genuine, its real, its painful.

He starts again, voice rough. “I hope wherever you are, you continue to move on, that you’re safe and well…and you don’t forget me at least,” he adds lastly. And it breaks him, those words, that he stops finishing his sentence without a goodbye. But he can’t finish his sentence. Can’t end it without knowing this man’s name. It’s the final stamp in any personal goodbye.

He doesn’t want to say Punisher. It doesn’t feel right. The name is a title for the man he loves. He wants to know so badly his real name it hurts all over again. But he’s resolute so he stands up, gets away from the edge, and dreads tomorrow because he’s stayed up so late. He’s got a life to live tomorrow. The real world won’t stop because of what’s happened. It will still continue even though Matt’s heart feels like it stopped beating.

He stops midway his walk to the exit door, and he extends his cane out so he can walk down, tilts his head in a strange solute to the dark sky he can’t see.

“I hope wherever you are, you’ve found peace. Goodbye.”

It’s all he can muster as a goodbye.

 

 

-

 

 

It’s hard for Frank. It’s always been hard for him. It is that all consuming hell fire that is just simply living.

The years disappear, slowly, but surely, time continues. It only progresses forward for Frank.

He’s now 36 and his life has turned for the better. His old battle scars ache from time to time, some all worn out and others feel like they’re new again; all stringent reminders of a war he had to partake in.

But the one thing that’s stayed the same is the name on his right thigh. It’s still black. But he’s noticed the colour has changed a bit to look almost maroon in sparse light. The name and colour haunt him about a future that doesn’t exist anymore.

He has a different future now.

No.

It’s just a future now. One continuous river that leads us to the present oceans. There is no doubting, no dreaming, and no tolerating about something that never really existed. It’s a harsh truth to understand in this world that sometimes you’ll never meet your soul mate.

He’d tried searching for him for the better part of his last year on the reserves, it was something he’d needed to ease his mind of. He found the orphanage Matt was in when he was young. It lead to a dead end. It turned into an obsession that made him realized months later, that he was one of those people on the news that went crazy knowing their soulmates died, that went berserk and killed everyone around them in a sad attempt to make others feel what they felt.

That’s how he ends up being with Maria. They met at a support group for those whose soulmates died too early.

They both found kinship with knowing their mates were long dead, having realized long ago the painful truth in visions that scared them. They shared this pain as they kissed and embraced one another, felt a connection that shouldn’t have been there, but was glad it was.

Maria tells him her name was Serena. Her mate. She told him that her second sightings had led her to find a hospital, where her heart was racing in both terror and fear as she had entered the place. She learned from many of her second sightings that she was working on becoming a doctor, that she was going out to party one night, when she for first time allowed herself a break, celebrating that she was at the prime of her youth, and then all to quickly fell victim to a drunk drivers recklessness.

In return he tells her the name. _Daredevil_. It’s the least he can do, and it really is the least he can do.

He doesn’t try to elaborate on his theories about the name, because he can’t understand what the name can ever really mean. It’s a blank space in his mind that’s haunted him for years.

He doesn’t even tell her his real name. The ones he can recall from his second sightings. In fact, he doesn’t mention it at all when she prompts about it. He lies straight to her face that Matt died too young for him to ever see anything. He feigns ignorance on it that he starts to believe it, but always catches himself feeling guilty that he feels ill.

Maria can say her soulmates name with ease. She says the name with a longing that isn’t quite what it used to be. She remembers this woman, but has forgotten her long ago.

He can’t do that. He can’t bare himself to not remember Matthew, can’t get past his soulmates death like Maria has. She’s sad she never met the woman, but she’s stronger than she lets on, stronger than him, because she hopes. She hopes that love can come in different forms, not just soul links. But Frank can hear what she really means when she says it. She doesn’t think soul-linked - what they used to have - is real love together. It’s forced. It's coercion guised as romance. It's the very death of geniuine love is what she believes. 

She knows what she feels for Frank, understands that what they have is genuine and more real than any mark on their skin is. She’s in love with Frank, and he is, too, in love with Maria. He isn’t faking it, she does make his life easier and better.

And he wishes he believed in what she believed. Fully of course.

But he can’t hope, he can’t dream of hope to erase Matt out of his life because that would kill him from the inside. He can't imagine what it would mean to cover up the name on his skin. 

He can’t bear to think of forgetting Matt’s pain away, to wish him gone, and move him out of his memory like Maria has of Serena.

Its murder to him, or feels something akin to it. It’s obscene that his mind jumps to such an extreme like that, but it doesn’t stop the rightness of what he feels. His intuition about things for Matt always feel right.

Maria never sees it like that. She just says that it’s a simple goodbye, and moves on. That easy to forget. Maybe he thinks this way because some part of Frank is still aching, still searching uselessly for a man not there anymore, and a part of him is unhinged from the world because nothing eases his suffering than to wade in it and feel it all in its ugly glory.

Some part of him, yet again, thinking to his times when he was young, of listening and hearing Matts voice and words, makes him ache to be reunited in the death bed with Matthew. The believers, the strong ones, those with lost soul mates, believe in the afterlife with their soulmate.

A permanent paradise for the soul-linked.

Frank really wants to believe his soul will find Matthews and not Marias.

And maybe he should believe that’s a lie, like Maria has.

A filthy lie to make incompatible’s like them to be condemned by the majority of those in soul-links.

It’s a lie he doesn’t believe in, but goes through the motions like he does. It’s like a half-goodbye in a sense. Not killing Matt by forgetting him. He just needs to get on with his life.

Matt had wished that at least. 

But he also said to never forget him.

But he believes he can save himself by doing it half in half. Save himself the hassle of losing his mind over fretting about Matt’s final wish.

It’s not like he believes in the lie fully, he just has to go through the motions that he does.

And it’s easy enough to do it.

It’s like shooting a gun over and over, the recoil easy to handle with repetition, the pain numbing over time; gets used to it because a gun has always been comfortable in his hands than anything else. He was a soldier all throughout his life with only one failed mission.

He loads his gun.

_One round._

He marries Maria. He says I do.

_One more round._

He buys a big house with her.

_One more round._

The picket fence life is grand with neighbors and festivity.

_Two more rounds this time._

He has two beautiful children.

He loses count after that. The bullets just a shot in the air.

It dawns on him, too late in the future, of what he’s done to Matthew, of how red the mark gets that it burns him in the middle of the night.

It’s a painful reminder that makes him understand why he’s receiving it in the first place.

He shot Matthew down. Destroying his memories, their marks, and sightings of each other, diminishing all the things that he’d promised he’d keep.

He’s a bastard.

He sits in bed alone, very glad Maria isn’t there to see him cry as he’s just racking his brain, beating himself relentlessly, as he tries and fails to remember Matt’s full name, and it shocks him with unbearable sorrow that he doesn’t know for certain. It floods his heart with a heavy despair, breaking it and filling his veins and arteries until they’re bruised and severed.

He’s a heartless beast that forgot to keep his promise.

He feels that he’ll do that all throughout his life.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

It’s solemnly apparent again, when he’s under unsettling familiar hellfire for the first time in decades, that he was right about his inability to keep his promises.

All Frank wants to do is die at that moment, feels the blooming pain all over his torso and head. No anger. Not yet. Just pain and shell shocked hands holding on to lifeless bodies.

He’s just tired of not being able to keep promises.

 

 

-

 

 

Matt doesn’t know how it happens.

It’s a breaking point that leads him down this path. It shouldn’t have happened this way, but he’s content with how it lead to this. More right than what he’s ever done as a lawyer. It feels more like the justice he’s wanted to achieve. It’s not right of course, but Matt’s always been good at cognitive dissonance at the best of times. It’s why he’s still breathing and moving forward after experiencing his life. He’s strong.

The city needed him. The city created him. Maybe if he took some time for himself he’d realize that some part of him is still in pain over the nameless man’s death that doing this is the only respite he has.

Fate hadn’t dealt him a good card, hadn’t saved his soulmate. Too many people have left his life.

So he’ll help others.

He’ll fight the tough fight and save those who can’t protect themselves.

It’s strange to assume, but he feels like the nameless man would appreciate what he’s done. He would have. It reminds him too much of would have’s. That’s a dangerous path to lead to.

So instead of the would have’s and what if’s, Matt focuses on what is at stake now, what is happening to Hell’s Kitchen as Matt pushes and fights big criminals hiding behind the big city, forcing them away and ebbing away their control to a near shallow wave.

He’s satisfied with sending Fisk to jail and all the other criminals. Karen and Foggy all celebrate with him, knowing really how he actually sent him to jail, knew he was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

It was all fate how they finally met each other. Karen was integral to Fisk’s downfall. She was too caught up with Union Allied information, with even more personal blackmail from Urich’s help.. So it wasn’t a surprise that Karen was part of their little team to take down Fisk. They defaced his image, forced him out of town and made him desperate to get everything in control. They went through it together, gathering evidence and powering through to overthrow the King Pin.

It was tiring work.

But it was worth knowing that the streets were safer.

Then the small celebration with Karen, Foggy and him all slowly ends with the tender hold that Karen has with Foggy, of them walking out to find a cab because they’ve planned a day to themselves once all of this commotion finally ended. Nail in the wooden plank. A job well done for all of them.

Matt stays a while though, still nursing his own drink before making the slow approach to leave Josie’s bar.

Matt doesn’t have anything to do tomorrow like Karen and Foggy do.

It doesn’t sting as much as he had thought, of seeing them hold each other and giggle, of them being in absolute happiness as they’ve finally found each other.

Matt tries his best to be happy for them. He’d be a terrible friend if he wasn’t really happy. Truly he is. But it hurts.

His days are pretty normal after this. Nothing planned like they do, nothing romantic, or even more jovially celebratory because you survived together. No one is waiting for Matt when he gets home.

He almost misses the danger, the elusiveness and adrenaline being Daredevil was, of fighting people and being someone important enough to be talked about like a superhero. It felt like it was filling some part of him, molding him to a slightly less mangled version of himself.

Matt supposes it won’t be too quiet now. Crime will still happen. But it won’t be enough to distract him, to exhaust him and have him on edge, to make him forget remembering those memories that feel like hot daggers on his spine and heart. It was a great distraction to the pain, to the loneliness, and sadness he got whenever he was stuck in his sparse house for too long. 

He cleans himself of the smell of alcohol. It freshens himself up as he tries and fails to sleep on the silk sheets that don’t feel too rough on his skin.

After the fourth time trying to feign sleep Matt gets up. He decides to go on an early morning run. 2:30 is the perfect time.

It’s not something he usually does, but it isn’t unusual for him to run. It’s a good excuse to beat up bad guys.

He hides the armour under baggy clothes and sweatpants.

He heads out with a clear thought in his mind.

_Forget about him._

Matt keeps the guise of his simple walk easy and carefree. He keeps his ears open, lets his range increase and hear all the cacophony of sound. He walks with ease, the darkness a good shield to his apparent blindness.

It’s some time later that Matt realizes he’s wandered father than he’s ever been, to some part of town he’s never been in. It’s disconcerting, but not enough to panic about. He can retrace his own scent back to his place.

But then he hears the heavy hellfire of bullets and Matt’s suddenly reminded of the nightmare.

It’s loud, the sound not too far away from where he is, maybe a few streets down.

But Matt’s too terrified to move, to feel, to think anything about saving anyone because the numbness from that memory seeps into his skin, makes him cold and empty, void and apathetic. There’s so much blood, he remembers his hands holding down on the wound, of the blood draining away to foreign soil.

Matt gasps as he falls down.

But his body moves without his control. He’s marching towards the sound, biting away fear and panic because people are hurt. He still marches on. The man with no fear continues because nothing hurt more than losing people close to you.

Death is a terrible goodbye.

People are hurt. He can hear their screaming.

He has to help.

The smell of blood is the first thing he notices when he enters the back of abandoned building, can taste the daunting taste of it in his mouth as much as the subtle hint of alcohol. It’s disgusting, but he’s diligent to pull through. It’s a massacre, or nearly so, because a few people are still walking away, trying their hardest to run away from the shots while firing near him. It knocks his senses a bit, screwing his spatial awareness, but it paints a picture of his surroundings easier.  

“Get the hell out in the back!” Matt yells to the few men walking in fetal position out. They’ve already made a slow crawl to get there, not needing his advice. Matt turns over a few tables to make cover for some of the victims, helping them as much as he can to get them to safety.

Matt notices another man shooting off to the far right of him, towards where the front door is. It’s obvious he’s the man responsible.  

The man shoots at him from where he is, finding him an easy target. It’s easy to know where he’ll shoot, where the bullet is being aimed at because of the change of air pressure and sound. The man stops shooting, reloading and hiding out from a makeshift post with an overturned table.

Matt throws his billy club at the wall, letting it ricochet from there where he knows it’ll aim at the man’s forearm. He hears the grouch of his voice and the sound of clanking metal. His gun is down. Matt jumps to catch him with his other club, but the man throws back a flash bomb that’s ten times more efficient in rattling his radar sense that he can’t even tell where up is at the moment. He runs off in the opposite direction though, his sense of smell leading him away from the explosion.

It’s a while later, once he was done struggling to keep himself upright and moving away from the building and danger, the other man had fled just the same as him.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Frank Castle was a man who forgot things, let them go so he could live and move on. It wasn't a coward act if it meant he didn't go down that darker path.

But that didn't mean he wasn't incapable of fighting when it was called for. He was a person to never turn back down on a fight of any kind- he would brawl hard and bite through pain for the sake of it - but that didn't mean he wasn't fully tactical when he did it, he wasn't inane to go all out with a bang if he could help it.

It was worth it to never risk the failure of not being there for Matt. 

So he was always calculated when he did it, always measuring out his life in small little cubes when he went out on the field. If some parts of him went out, saw the things it saw, did the things it did, those parts would have been the only parts affected by war, of what he's done and couldn't do, of what he should and would have to do. 

He was a soldier for the sake of just completing his mission. No pride in it at all anymore. 

But Frank's not part of that war anymore. 

No. He left that behind long ago. 

He left his family behind a long time ago, too. 

All that was left was the burns they caused. Vestiges of false hopes tainting his heart in charred cicatrices. 

Frank Castle was never one to really hope now, to never really admit to himself that things are better if he just thought better. That was a lie convoluted by the pure of heart. None of them ever knew what it was like to lose someone, to _really_ lose people - that the fear, doubt, panic, pain - all of it just smashed together to make you understand that the 'better' life is truly a naive fantasy. 

It's a point of no return when you lead your mind down this new narrow dark path. 

You become a person who ain't much of anything human - you become a monster. 

Too much death caused him to be familiar with that word. Branded him even. 

 _Monster_. 

He was tired of burying family, friends, his wife, his kids - he was tired of death punishing him. 

So maybe some part of him just never wanted to see Matt's coffin, to see his tomb stone engraved with his name, to know he rested peacefully in the ground with everyone he's loved. 

It'd be the final nail for sure if he ever did.

But he never did. He never wanted to find it. 

There was too much loss already. 

And it was so damn quiet for so long. So quiet he couldn't bare it somedays. He'd really thought he was falling forever the last time it happened. Falling and failing to help Matt. 

It felt like falling down with him was the last thing he would ever remember of Matt. 

Sometimes he wishes he had the courage to find the tomb stone, to find his last resting spot. To maybe find proof he didn't really die. 

Maybe if he did, he might've found found hope, some semblance of closure or, dare he say it, happiness. 

Or Maybe he'd turn more into a monster. 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

It's everything and nothing that Matt had wished before. It's a new chaos that has him back into the world of heroism, of fighting bad guys and being someone else who lives off being the broken man the city made him to be. 

It's at least doing something help ease something inside Matt. He's thankful for that much at least. Thankful for Frank Castle. 

But it really is back to endless nights of searching and figuring out a person. 

It's back to chasing and fighting people to get to this person. 

And then Karen has the gall to call a monster like him a hero. 

Foggy and Matt are vehement at best. 

And then it's back to working all morning to try and figure how they can save someone who Karen believes is a good guy, where she believes whole heartedly in that distinct notion. She seems to see more than just the facts about what he's done. Matt and them can't seem to say the same. He's done too much not to be at least accountable. 

He wonders idly if she's doing this because of experience, if she's made the same decision the way Frank has. Killing criminals _-_ killing _people_ \- because they deserve it. 

It's better not to think that way. Karen is innocent. He believes that as undeniably true. 

Matt's till wary of representing Frank Castle though, still uncertain and doubtful a man like him would want their help. It's too much blood, too much anger, too much regret in all the case files he's been reading and filing through. 

Karen's forced him to read all the papers though so he follows that order easily. 

The man he reads about has suffered tremendous lost. Entire family caught in the cross fire of a gang war. It explains a lot. It doesn't justify it for Matt. 

But still, the pang of hurt is clear in his actions now. It's a soul reaping revenge because a man like him has nothing else to live but kill and torture those who've done him and everyone else wrong. 

Matt keeps reading even when his heart starts to waiver at the words. 

Shot in the head. Survived. Lived. 

It takes a lot to continue reading after that. Matt feels his fingers shaking when his fingers slide over more of Frank Castle's life. 

Military service. High honours. An upstanding soldier of war-

Matt stops the quick ghost of his fingers, the pads of his middle and pointer finger feeling the words 'Daredevil' from a statement given to a close comrade of Frank's. It was Frank's nickname in his time as a soldier. 

_Daredevil out there._

Matt shakes his head, angry at himself for being momentarily distracted by something nonsensical. 

He squashes the hope he feels in his chest. It's coincidence and nothing more. There was nothing that could ever replicate that feeling of dying for Matt.  

Frank Castle is just Frank Castle. 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

“I’m Matthew Murdock, Frank. I’ll be the attorney representing your case.”

It still hits Frank like a freight train, all too fast and no preempt with the force of that name, like a terrible crash that makes his ears go numb for a bit. He thought he was prepared for it. He wasn’t. It hurts remembering that name.

His face stays stoic though, but his throat burns with acid and his stomach feels like lead. It’s all too much and not enough to desensitize the feelings.  

It’s a cruel joke is what it is.

“I’m sorry. You can’t represent me.” It’s quick, its fast, and it’s painful to say. He looks at the man, looks at the dark rimmed glasses and what they mean. Matt may have been blind, but his gaze sends a shiver down his spine like he could see down to his very soul.

The lawyer trying to represent him cants his head to the side in confusion, his face beckoning for him to explain why.

Frank doesn’t. He just sits on the gurney, feeling all too trapped and gutted. He takes a deep breathe, letting his cracked ribs erupt with pain, and he’s thankful for it, grounding him enough that he doesn’t try to tear off the cuffs, to go berserk in the room by the maddening impossibility of the situation.

_You’re supposed to be dead. Dead like everyone he’s loved._

“I’m sorry as well, Mr. Castle, but you have no choice. I’m your only option if you want justice. It’s me, or the rest of the sharks out there are going to throw you to Reyes without a fight.”

“Let them. I’m sorry…” he can’t even say the name, something he’s now finally able to recall fully. It’s on the tip of his tongue and he bites down, hard, suppressing the forbidden name, and letting the blood fill his mouth.

“ _Frank_ ,” he says, the name spoken so differently than how she said it, so clear and concise, so soft and hum-like, “Please let us help you.”

“I don’t want you.” It’s not what he means to just say, but it’s all that’s willing to come out. He feels heady now, his heart beating fast and terribly loud, and the man before him looks at him with deep set concern from the way his eyebrows crease, like he can hear Frank’s heart beat and it bothers the lawyer to no end hearing it. And he must, he must hear Frank’s heart beating, because he knows he can hear with such vast clarity of the world around him. His beating heart must paint beautiful, visual picture for Matts heightened senses. 

Matt looks a bit confused, but he nods carefully, almost curtly. “I see you’re uncomfortable. I’ll leave now.” He shuffles away from the room to leave the blonde women and blond man in the room, but when he’s close enough, he whispers something in their ears, and finally makes his way for the door.

He didn’t expect the awful tug in his heart to spurn him, to brand him a coward as he looks anywhere but Matt when he leaves. He wants to cry all over again, about Matt being gone, and nowhere to be seen again, about how much he’s missed someone he’s never met.

But he keeps his mouth shut and his heart latched closed.

He can’t do this. He can’t deal with Matt right now.

 

-

 

Matt knows when to expect a lost cause.

Frank's decided to escape and run off with barely anyone's notice, walking easily away with injuries that just edge off of being fully healed. Matt doesn't try to feel the unfounded worry he has for a convicted man like Frank Castle. It's just Matt's insistent guilty heart aching for the right thing to be done. Nothing more. Frank Castle needed to go to court and that's all that is needed to be said for Matt's desires. 

Karen and Foggy seem to take it upon themselves to just cave in and wait out for tomorrow to do anything, of finding 2:00 an ungodly hour to start a search party and initiate a lawsuit with Mrs. Reyes for losing their client. Matt agree's with only one part of their answer. 

You see, Matt doesn't have the better choice of choosing to sleep in a comfy bed with someone who loves him. It's not a right that was granted on his person.

So Matt goes out to find the wanted man loose in the streets again, to fill his mind of something else besides the empty bed. 

The dark red suit makes it easy for him to scour the city with ease, climb high rises, and buildings with his innovative grappling hook. It feels like gliding in the wind, of being free. It's the most he can ever get to feeling like he isn't caged that much in his little world. 

It doesn't take long for him to find the scent. It's stranger, more pronounced than anything he'd ever smelt before, like it was a beacon to his senses.

Frank Castle was different to him in every single way.

A being that is the paragon of polar opposite to Matt's conscientious mind. But this also happened to make him the one person who Matt found himself wondering about constantly. 

Everything about the strange man made Matt want to breathe or take in his foreignness with a grimace of a smile, to learn and spend time with someone who intrigued him to no end simply because of how he lived. It was like poking at the deepest parts of him that he never wanted to know about, the darker and grittier stuff he'd never think to partake in. It was the novelty of the danger of it that made him want to know what made Frank Castle such a different person than him. He wanted to know him in every way that made him tick. 

Matt shook his head, silencing those thoughts. It wouldn't do well to dwell in dangerous reveries like that. Frank Castle wasn't a man worth knowing. 

That was an awful lie from him. A terrible sin on his part. 

God, it was just his own shitty luck wasn't it? To make love the most fickle thing about him? 

And all because his heart was stolen long ago by a young boy he barely knew. 

His heart could never find anyone worth wanting, of being with - because the back of his mind always cried out that it was never _him_ , never the man who would be his, the man who fought for him, the man with the accented baritone voice. 

And so he shut off those emotions. 

That was his whole motto, his whole essence as a being, his whole need to be a masochist. He was so goddamn damaged and calloused, made him fully jaded and hardhearted to every person who tried to get to be more than strangers. 

And besides? What's so great about knowing him? He's not worth anything. He's always been too much work and not enough reward.

Matt wouldn't wish anyone to be dragged down with him because of who he was, to know him in the most intimate of ways, to have every aspect figured out by someone. 

Matt shakes away those thoughts again, focusing harder at the task at hand. 

He finds the epicentre of the scent. It ends on one particular roof a few blocks away from his front view. Matt launches himself upwards, making momentum to throw his billy club at a fire escape. 

With one final tug on his hook, he hoisted himself up to make an arched swing, like a parabola, flying upwards, and let's go of the hook to make him land on the rooftop to where Frank Castle was aiming a rifle to his head. 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The Devil Of Hell's Kitchen was something Frank put at the back of his mind. 

It was a cheap trick that was meant as a distraction sent from God himself. Nothing more than just a tug in his heart at the mention of the nickname. 

But fighting the masked guy all in red is something he wishes he didn’t have to do, wishes wasn't destiny and their soul link that caused them to be like this. Frank knows it was bound to happen. Knows it like the inevitability of death.

He was a lost cause that was hell bent on revenge, of finally breaking apart and being one of those people that were so sick and tired of everyone dying around him. 

The Daredevil himself would find him eventually. He apparently had a knack for finding danger. He'd snuff Frank out to be one of the bad guys plaguing the city, of being a menace to society, because he needs to find him. 

And god, the red outfit is really too much when he finally meets him. 

Blood red, nearly crimson black. 

Horns like some devil freak. 

It pisses Frank to no end. It’s still scrawled on his skin, on his left thigh, where it feels like it burns each time he lands a punch to this man. The boiling in his blood and skin is a new sensation to add, feels like it blows him apart, where his heart, when it  _used_ to be unhinged, is now open to the spotlight of his shitty lucky life. Frank used to be able to throttle himself to danger because he had nothing else but aches and creaks in his bones and muscles. Nothing worth missing to care for.

But now, now this bastard walks in with this potent tug to his heart that Frank want's to scream and implode with how much he wants so badly to be pulled with. Or maybe he wants to pull back just as good with Matt. 

He just wants so badly. 

But he’s always thought he only had one reason to live. He’s only lived for one person. He thought it would be for her only now. Now she’s gone and everything else with her. He thought he was a void that was full of despair, and pain, and anger, and damnation.

He’s stopped thinking about this person. 

_Daredevil._

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen makes him seethe with anger, with pain and memories he’s forgotten because all consuming revenge has changed him. It carved out anything worthwhile to his insufferable human existence.

He grabs at the hidden gun strapped to his leg, when the Red man thinks he has him overpowered, when he has him on the ground leaning over him to deliver a powerful jab, but he's stunned to find him with a gun aimed at him.

He’s got a clear shot once he’s on the ground. He aims to kill - and then his aim shifts, to the left, because there’s something in him that screams to stop, stop, stop, stop.

It's like something that’s ripping him open to make him feel again. Re-carving his heart to a moulded, whole form; an unrecognizable form.

The red suited vigilante goes down from the shot, not dead, but not okay either. He’s bleeding from the abrasion to the left side of his head. 

Frank tries to walk away, to leave him, to crush the unbearable regret in his chest. He barely even registers where he is when he's suddenly grabbing Matt by the shoulders and holding on to him for dear life, with his wounded head cradling his lap like a goddamn life line. 

_What has he done?_

It’s makeshift with what he’s got. He grabs the hem of his under shirt, hands shaking uncontrollably as he rips it in tight jerks. Frank feels the cold against his skin as he shoulders his leather jacket tighter around Matt's body. 

Frank lifts the red mask over the man’s face with painfully steady fingers, like he's fighting not to shake. Frank’s eyes soften as he looks down at the lightly rosy cheeks and soft brown hair of the man he's loved since he was a child. But he also gets a good look at the wound he made, the red flakes of skin and speckles of blood which came so close to nicking him deeper than that. 

It's a cry of relief that comes out of him when he he raises his hands to his own face, to cry out and bite at the meat of his thumb.

"I'm so goddamn sorry, Matt," he cries out mutely, his words strained and hard to speak out. 

Frank balls the fabric he ripped and brings it to Matt's head, where he clenches his mouth tightly, wrapping the wound with the fabric around the mans head. He finds himself using an unfamiliar tenderness when he treats Matt, something he thought he’d never find himself to ever use again.

Later on, when Matt's breathing relaxes like a quiet signal, his rough hands unconsciously find themselves resting on Matts cheeks, the pads of his thumb scratching against the baby stubble of his jaw. 

“Goodbye, Matt,” Frank says as he tries to stand up to leave.

He almost does.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Matt doesn’t know where he is when he wakes up and blinks to fight away the tiredness in his eyes. His head aches with a dull pounding, one side of his head feels particularly sensitive. Matt tries to stand up, but vertigo overtakes him and he ends up resting his head back on the pillow out of need. 

There are flashes from last night as he shuffles in the bed sheets. He remembers he was on a lead with the wanted man he’d been trailing, he can recall that much from before. He also remembered them fighting on the rooftop when they finally met. He felt the anger in the other man’s punches. Matt felt the pain in his collar as he punched back just as hard. 

Then it all blacks out of there for a while. 

Did he get knocked out? 

Matt tries to remember more.

There was someone who was carrying him, holding him as they lead him here, and there were two voices that were talking to each other, one leading and the other holding him. It’s all that he can frustratingly remember from his shaky thoughts. 

His mind still isn’t clear to how he got here, but he knows he’s at his home, familiar scents tell him that much. But there’s something else to the smell now. It’s a barely there smell of gun residue and leather. Matt’s confused now. Did he bring him here? How did he know where he lived? Where is he now? But why?

All of those questioning thoughts die out when Foggy walked into the room with a heavy stomp to his feet. The sound of clenched teeth was unmistakable as his palpable anger.

There were sharp words thrown back and forth. There were tired words thrown back and forth. It ended with a substantial amount of alcohol consumed early in the morning, and worry and regret painting their words when they spoke.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” Matt mumbled out as a painfully half-assed apology. It was best he could muster in his condition. It might be the best he could come up with in general. 

Foggy slurs his words at first, trying and failing to figure out what he needs to say before coming up with: “Im'not goin to lie and say that I’m down with yah bein Daredevil, but, like a good friend, a REALLLY fucking good friend, I’ll stan by your side no _matter_ what.” Foggy’s voice becomes uncharacteristically calm, no longer worried, like he’s been going over these words beforehand, “Hopefully you’ve got more than just me looking out for you.”

Matt nods, his head still swimmy with the alcohol, Foggy’s words confusing, but the sincerity and seriousness isn’t lost on him. “Thanks.”

 

 

 

 -

 

 

 

Matt knows who he is. 

He knew who Frank Castle was to his skin. 

It all became clear when he remembered the conversation, of the quipped words shared between his best friend and the man who shot him. 

He was his Punisher. The Punisher who held him and wept for hurting him, of denying him, of running away when he was so close to his soulmate. 

But Matt knew why he would, could understand really. He was a damaged soldier who believed him long dead because of a miscommunication. 

Matt thought the same. 

So much time had been wasted because of it. 

So much distance had been created because of it. 

But then, would they have ever been who they are if this didn't happen? If Frank and him never felt the pangs of lost that they tried to fill it with their own personal vendettas to the world. Each of them wanting to personally make the world responsible for causing them harm like this.

Would they be Daredevil and Punisher still? 

They were who they were because of their pain. It moulded them as much as it scarred them. 

Matt wished they didn't have to be this way, that they could have led normal lives as two men in love. Matt finds that idea so foreign and strange. It's not his world anymore, it's been long past that kind of paradise that thinking about it is laughable. It ended way past when both of them even found and fought and shot at one another.  

He wonders what him and Frank would be like if they connected again, or if they did, that certainly doesn't look like a future would happen between them. Frank may have already gotten over him, moved past him and decided that Matt wasn't worth the grain in his boots to be sought after. 

Maybe that's why he shot him, why he took him down like that, missing a clear shot. Maybe he was scared of Matt, scared of caring or loving someone because loving and losing is too much of a burden now. Maybe it was a warning to never come near him again. 

It pains Matt to no end that he'd understand a decision like that. 

But he's looking for Frank regardless. He just needed one more goodbye from him. It didn't matter what he said, he just needed to see him one more time, one more small moment to share of a man he barely knew in the proper way, but so badly wanted to in ever conceivable way. 

He just wanted a goodbye on his terms. He wanted to say goodbye knowing who Frank was to him. It was such a stupid and weak excuse to think of. Matt knew better why he was doing this. 

He was hoping.

That's what he was doing. Hope. He broke that unspoken rule of his. He hoped that seeing Frank one last time would cause something to finally happen. 

Hope made you open and unguarded to the terrors of the world. It made you so damn vulnerable to get hurt again and again and again. 

Which is why he wasn't thinking when he crossed uncharted territory of New York to cover more ground to find Frank. 

This is why Matt doesn't hope. 

He gets into a lot of trouble because of it. 

The electrical hum of the wire hits him hard, a whip lash motion that has him crying in pain and paralzyed momentarily. 

He barely even registers whats happening before his eyes close, feeling heavy and weak.

Sleep comes easy now. 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

"You're a goddamn moron!" 

Matt barely even heard the noise of his words, it was like a small shout in the infinite darkness of his mind. He remembers pain, of the sting of electricity, and then the booming sounds of guns exploding in cacophony. 

"You better fucking live, you better live." There was a piercing, lamenting cry, but still muted by the vastness of the dark space, of how far his mind felt to where he was at the moment. "I swear to God, Matt, this isn't the end of the line for you - _Red_ , stay with me, please. I should have never left you be." 

There are hands on his face now, he knows the feeling, can't place when or where, but it feels so very familiar. The pads of someones thumb gently circle around his cheeks, melodic and sad in how desperate they held him. He feels the strong beat of a heart behind his head, of the strong muscles that keep his head steady. 

"Red...please. Walking away so many times when you were this close was so hard...don't make me make another mistake like this." 

There's only one person who'd name him something like that. It was just fraying nickname that should never have stucked, but it did.

Matt's hated that name ever since it came out of that foul mouth so many months ago. 

Frank Castle was such a pain in his ass. 

He heard the sound of laughter come through his foggy mind. It was pained, but nonetheless it was there all the same. Groggily, he assumes he must have said that out loud. 

"You're equally a pain in my ass, Red." 

Matt feels his cheeks tug into a smirk. 

"You're here. With me," Matt says weakly. The hands circling his cheek idly fixate on his collar bone. 

Oh. 

His cowl and collar must have been tugged open or ripped apart. There isn't any bleeding or serious wounds on him, but he does feel the strain in his body, of the smell of ozone to his body. 

"You took care of him for me?" 

"Asshole didn't see me coming."

Matt chuckles again. He realizes later on that Frank is circling his mark. 

"Let me feel yours," Matt says weakly. He doesn't even know how they could do that in the position they're in, but Matt hears the sounds of a blade working its way to Frank's legs, where he cuts a sizable hole from how long he saws back and forth on his pants leg. 

Matt takes a slow hand to creep into the pant leg, to feel muscled flesh - and then there - the mark, his mark, Daredevil written on his leg like that. 

The smile on his lips is enough to wake him now, to make his heart patter with relief to know that this isn't some dream, that this is the boy he knew all those years ago. Frank Castle was his soulmate. 

"I'm happy I found you now."

He feels Frank shaking. He's nodding. "I'm never leaving you again, I promise," Frank says it with a conviction that borders on manic, like he needs to say it, wants to say it, to make a promise with those words so it eases the pain in his heart all those years ago - in both of theirs, really. "You will never ever know what it's like to be without me. You're life and mine are twined now."

Matt hums, appreciating and content. This isn't how it should have happened, but this is for them, this is how it would always have happened. "I found you now. So the same goes for me. You'll never know ever again what life was like without me, too." 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
